China now makes 200 million face masks a day — more than 20 times the number it made at the start of February. But it's still not enough. Factories that once made shoes, iPhones and cars are now being retooled to make masks.
are being retooled to make masks. Machines that once churned out fibrous materials destined for diapers and sanitary pads are now producing materials for masks.
Currently, of the 200 million masks China makes a day, only 600,000 are N95 standard masks, used by medical personnel, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, a state planning body. Provincial regulators have granted dozens of new licenses to open additional factories capable of producing top-grade masks, including those that meet the standards for use by health-care professionals.
The machines are not easy to make because of the exacting precision required, says Müller:"You need to stretch these fibers by hot air, and [the air] needs to be in perfect condition over the width of the machine. The biggest dilemma is that many of the machines are not producing consistent quality."
Chinese engineering firms say they're struggling."We need about six months to make the machines, and it takes another month to assemble them," said Leo Liu, a sales director at Haigong Machinery, a Chinese company that assembles the machine parts for melt-blown lines imported from the US, Germany and Japan."Everyone is considering mask manufacturing, but they don't understand the process. Once they learn the cost of these machines, they give up.
An underwear factory in the northwestern city of Changchun spent slightly longer — eight days — fixing frozen pipes and finding delayed shipments of raw materials to get a daily production line for 3,000 masks started, after it became licensed to operate in early February.
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